COVID-19 Changed Everything
One thing we all learned in the past year and a half is that customer service never stops. From retail to government, customers around the world still need assistance. With no place to go for the better part of a year, e-commerce soared as resources dwindled. In 2020, over two billion consumers purchased goods online. That surpassed a total spend of $4 trillion globally. Did we finally see the reality of “too much of a good thing?” An imbalance was bound to occur.
Many customers wishing to locate their late shipments, change a flight, schedule a healthcare appointment, defer late payments, or seek unemployment/IRS payments find themselves deserted with no assistance to navigate a solution. The majority who manage to get through do so by enduring unprecedented wait times to reach a live person. Fortunately for our clients outsourcing with OutPLEX, we can rapidly scale to meet volume demands and deflect calls to other digital messaging channels with live agents on standby to optimize service levels and not disrupt business.
Desperate Times & Fast Changes
Customers are facing record hold times as companies struggle to keep their employees safe, healthy, and retain talent.
Desperate Times
With the uncertainty of COVID, some companies are so defeated trying to manage their customers’ expectations that they try everything to discourage people from calling without absolute necessity. Some went so far as to remove their contact numbers and chat options from the most prominent pages of their websites and replaced their workforce with apologetic prerecorded messages.
Fast Changes
As more countries mandated stay-at-home orders, many brands were forced to explore new options with little to no notice. As companies scrambled to find a solution, they soon realized that adopting a remote workforce model was the only answer. Though this appears to be an easy solution, many were not familiar with maintaining compliance and security regulations for remote agents. Additionally, they struggled to retain talent, with countless shifts abandoned. For assistance with this perfect storm, many companies turned to outsourcing with OutPLEX, as we pioneered in this model in 2005. Our expertise allowed our clients to keep their doors open and focus on their core competencies while we focused on ours, providing the best customer experiences.
OutPLEX’s cloud-based technology and advanced level security enable our workforce to be flexible as regulations continuously change. Our advanced infrastructure creates a seamless staffing transition, whether from the office, working remotely, or a hybrid model.
Digital messaging and conversational AI chatbots are a gamechanger. Our chatbots serve as virtual assistants for customer support inquiries, sales transactions, and tier I technical support. While a chat agent manages about three times the volume of a phone agent, automation can handle thousands of inquiries simultaneously. We accomplish this without sacrificing quality and enhance satisfaction with today’s customers. OutPLEX recognized the efficiency of digital messaging long before today’s current challenges.
Please Hold… What Your Customers Say
Data from customer surveys tell us that two-thirds of customers expect to hold for only two minutes or less. Of that sample, 13% of those polled refused to define an acceptable hold time. According to them, there is no acceptable amount of time to wait on hold.
What does that mean to your business?
- Viral negativity: Consumers are always connected to the outside world from the comfort of their own homes. Smartphones allow us to scroll endlessly on social media while we wait for a representative to answer our questions. As consumers grow frustrated, often, their posts do too. Long hold times often lead to negative reviews about your business. How many times have you witnessed one claiming “unable to speak to a human”? Has this deferred your trust in the brand before even purchasing? Furthermore, a bad customer experience will limit the only free advertising platform around, word of mouth.
- Call abandonment: According to Voice Response, Inc., 34% of people who hang up before reaching an agent are likely to never call back. Those customers are potentially lost forever, and that is costly sacrifice to make. Especially for a challenge with a viable and affordable solution – outsourcing.
As a top-rated outsourcing provider, OutPLEX increases customer satisfaction by providing a variety of communication platforms and by diving deep into data to truly understand the voice of your customer and to implement process improvements along the way. We will go above and beyond to earn the best reviews on social media, review apps, and the most popular web browsers. Our clients experience an average increase in CSAT of ~23%.
What Does Your Workforce Want?
While the pandemic has led to the worst U.S. recession in history, employers are now complaining about acute labor shortages. This is especially present in retail, restaurants, and contact centers. Look up “call center” or “contact center” on Indeed and you’ll find seemingly endless pages of opportunities.
Not only are people not returning to work, but many are quitting their jobs with a new perspective they developed while at home. They are now demanding more time with family, increased flexibility, and, with awareness of the workforce shortage, demanding higher pay. OutPLEX provides nearshore operations in Bogotá, Colombia and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic alongside their U.S. headquarter operations and a nationwide group of work-at-home agents, not only for redundancy but also for cost savings and a larger pool of talent.
Bring On an Innovator
For 20+ years, OutPLEX has exceeded client satisfaction in call center performance and digital transformation delivery and has been at the forefront of innovation in the customer engagement industry. While OutPLEX provides domestic outsourcing operations, we strategically chose both the Dominican Republic and Colombia based on contributing factors such as infrastructure, language, technical skillsets, and the right environment to showcase a high-touch, high-quality customer experience. The nearshore option expands the talent pool by an additional +50 million people. It also reduces labor costs by an average of 40% with lower attrition. What makes us different? Our passion for providing the best customer experience and staying ahead of the curve, even with the continuous unpredictable challenges that lie ahead.
How can we help get your business back on track? Let’s start with an initial contact, and we’ll take it from there!